Ray Bradshaw's first full-length comedy show contained a number of additional firsts, including the Glaswegian stand-up's account of playing three-sided international football and taking on Scotland's oldest woman at Connect 4.

But now he's following up that dare-inspired hour with his greatest challenge yet, becoming the first comedian to perform a show in English and sign language simultaneously. Or as fast as his hands and mouth can keep up.

Born to deaf parents, signing was the 28-year-old's first language and he's fluent. Yet as one of only a handful of acts to perform with an interpreter at this year's Edinburgh Fringe, he appreciates that it can be “like watching a game of tennis".

He said: “The minute you say something funny or controversial, the [hearing people in the] audience look straight over to the interpreter to see what the word looks like before looking back at you.

"But what throws you off more is if the interpreter is behind you. You'll be speaking and they're relaying it with a five-second delay. So you say your punchline, get a laugh, then the interpreter delivers it and the deaf people laugh. You have to time it exactly to leave a big enough gap so that everyone gets the joke in time. Otherwise, it disrupts your flow for the next bit.”

As a consequence, he's now become his own interpreter, performing with a clip mic.

“Technically, it should be second nature to me,” he said of a discipline that many linguists consider one of the hardest to master.

“But it's so difficult to write jokes in two different languages at the same time when the structure is so different. Instead of saying 'what's your name, you sign 'your name what?' There's no word for 'and' or 'is'. 'The' is not really used. So it's all about trying to get the punchlines to land at similar points.”

Read More

A seasoned compere, used to thinking on his feet and performing to European audiences with English as a second language, little in a club environment fazes Bradshaw, who grew up speaking to adults on his parents' behalf as a small child.

Not even the amorous couple at a recent gig in Perth, Australia who couldn't keep their hands off each other, or indeed, out of their respective clothing.

“It was astounding, so brazen” he marvelled.

“I could imagine it happening at Late 'n' Live but this was 8pm! I told myself that I was an aphrodisiac ...” Still, he knows that his latest show needs to be more tightly honed. Fortunately, he's found a deaf filmmaker to project some accompanying video behind him. And “maybe he can help me brush up on my signing”.

Part of the comic's motivation will be introducing stand-up to a neglected audience.

“I've been doing comedy since 2008. And when I performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015, it was the first time my dad could come to see me because it was interpreted” he explained.

“There's a big potential audience of deaf people out there, so it'll be great to bring them to a club like The Stand for the first time.”

Deaf hecklers bring their own particular challenges however.

Read More

“At the Fringe they didn't always know the etiquette and were wanting to ask questions and get involved. I had to explain that that's not how this works. When I'm compering I like to go off at a tangent and chat. But trying to relay unscripted stuff in English and signing, I'll have to do that a lot less.”

Sign language's political incorrectness, in conveying nationality, religion and sexual orientation, has provoked a certain amount of controversy and memorable routines by comedians like Adam Hills and Russell Peters. So it's an area that Bradshaw won't be exploring too deeply in Deaf Comedy Fam, except for how it applies to his own upbringing.

“My dad is profoundly deaf, born deaf. But my mum lost her hearing when she was 16-months-old to German Measles, so she's hard of hearing. She can lip read and speak as well” he explained.

“She learned sign language later, when she was 19. Whereas my dad learned in the early 50s and taught me all these racist things, because that's what he was taught.

“There's huge tension in deaf culture because many feel that they should be allowed to say what they want and the PC brigade shouldn't be able to stop them. My mum and dad argue about it all the time.

"It's very expressive and there are certain things that I'm not sure I'll commit to, some signs. I'd never say them in English so I don't see why I should say them in sign language.”

In the main, he'll just be answering those questions that many people feel too ignorant or too worried about being offensive to ask.

Such as: is sign language different in different countries? Yes, to the extent that Bradshaw can sometimes struggle to understand his deaf English cousins; Are deaf people's other senses heightened?

Again, yes. Bradshaw and his brother would fight on their parents' bed so that the vibrations of them knocking merry hell out of each other couldn't be felt downstairs.

Signers also have better peripheral vision, “which is something I only found out on Tuesday, because I guess I don't know what anyone else's vision is like” he admitted.

“We're more expressive too because a lot of sign language is facial expressions. What's weird though, is that whenever I do a gig without a microphone, I don't know what I should do with my hands. Because the rest of the time I'm very animated with them.”

Read More

Frankie Boyle has championed Deaf Comedy Fam and Bradshaw is joining him at the Frankie Boyle & Friends shows at the King's Theatre during the Glasgow Comedy Festival. He's also in the line-up for the Stand Up Against Motor Neurone Disease benefit at the theatre, a measure of how far he's come in nine years performing, given that he used to work there as a barman.

His final show at the festival is another fan's dream realised, with the Partick Thistle supporter appearing alongside Capital FM presenter Steven Mill to host a live version of their Soccer FM podcast.

Sharing his surprise at the level of access they've been afforded for interviews and the support they've received from clubs, Bradshaw recalled Steven McGarry giving them the first interview that any player involved gave about his teammate, Motherwell captain Phil O'Donnell, who collapsed and died in a 2007 game against Dundee United.

Indeed, the only episode they've needed to edit involved the indiscreet player who revealed that the best opponent he'd ever faced was Henrik Larsson, “but he's an arrogant cunt and I wanted to break his legs”.

“We were like 'right, we'll just edit that out and ask you again” Bradshaw laughed.

Read More

With a run at the Edinburgh Fringe set to follow the show's Glasgow Festival debut, he hopes that Deaf Comedy Fam can be as successful as I Dare Ray To. One of the dares he undertook was to record a single with singer-songwriter Tommy Reilly. Happily, for those who've heard the comedian sing, the track remains unreleased. But through the experience, he met a friend of Reilly's who's since become his girlfriend.

At the same time, he made such an impression in that three-sided football match, scoring the winner against England and Poland in a team that included Reilly, comic Matt Winning and two of his friends from school, that they've been invited to the first three-sided World Cup in Germany this year.

“It's during the Fringe, so I'm currently in negotiations to get two days off!”

Ray Bradshaw will play the Stand Comedy Club on March 25. Tickets are £8 and can be purchased here.

The 2017 Glasgow Live International Comedy Festival runs from March 9-27 at venues across the city.